Shadowed Ground Read Online Free Page B

of the way when I do. But a lot of people want to kill you, so we can’t afford to stop training. As much as it kills me and hurts you, a little pain and soreness is a decent trade for an increased chance at your survival.” He squeezed her fingers and pulled her up beside him. “There is something that may help, though. Your aunt’s diary. You should read it. I’ll start on the house.”
    She eyed him guiltily. “I should help.”
    “Uh-uh. You should try and find out how to control yourself so neither one of us has to clean up a mess like this again. Unless it’s on purpose, of course.”
    He held lightly to her hand while they walked up the boardwalk. He kept himself slightly in front of her. She had a good view of his sliced-up back. “Let me do something to bandage your back and arm, then I’ll read,” she countered quietly, still not quite able to believe she had something so powerful buried inside her somewhere.

Chapter Four: Annwyn
    With an entire floor separating her from the unsettling Eliot Gray, Chloe gingerly peeled off her clothes. She heard him turn on music, heard him sweeping up glass, and hung her head. He was stuck cleaning up her mess while she dealt with old ghosts in the form of a dead aunt’s diary and unwanted new memories.
    She ruled out a shower almost immediately, conscious of the burns across her shoulders and neck. She wanted to feel streaming heat, to feel the stink of fire and fighting literally wash off her and disappear down the drain. She knew it wasn’t possible. Forgetting would never be possible; she’d carry the events of that night with her forever, branded into her skin, a silvery map of how screwed up her life was.
    It would have to be a bath. At least, in the bath, she would be able to keep her neck and shoulders above water, and the sting of Eliot’s little needle would lessen after a moment or two. She would change the bandages on her neck and shoulders after, anyway, and then maybe Eliot could help her wash her hair at the kitchen sink. She felt herself flush with anger and embarrassment immediately after having the thought.
    While the tub filled up, she rooted around in the bathroom closet with shaking hands. She found huge fluffy towels. There was a large basket stuffed full of toiletries. It was obvious a woman had stayed here. Chloe thought briefly of her unknown aunt, and of the journal she’d cast aside as soon as she trooped back up to her strange bedroom. I wonder what I’ll find out about her, she thought, and about myself.
    She got a nasty surprise when she finally, after what seemed like days, stripped to the skin. Her knee was swollen and bruised. She remembered twisting it when she fell in a heap in a darkened room. She remembered kicking Griffin. Chloe’s fingers curled into fists as she looked swiftly away. Later. There would be time to deal with her feelings about Griffin when her life wasn’t in imminent danger. One deep breath, then she swept up her hair on top of her head and turned her back to the mirror.
    Chloe saw red flesh scabbing over in places. Two hands spanned her shoulders and neck, burned into her skin like skeletal wings. The thumbs met right at the base of her skull. That part was the most healed. She could just make out a faint silver color pooling in the middle of the thumb-shaped scars.
    Branded, her mind kept repeating. I’ve been branded with their poison and now I look like a tattooed freak.
    She realized her fist was in her mouth to keep the screams inside.
    It’s ok, it’s ok, she told herself fiercely. Things are going to get a lot worse than that.
    But she wondered how she could possibly stand it when they did.

    Wet from the fastest bath of her life, Chloe collapsed into her borrowed bed. She’d scavenged a soft, oversized t-shirt from the room across the hall and threw it hastily on over a pair of too-big boxers. I’m going to need clothes, she thought grimly, rolling up the waistband of the baggy shorts. Her